Preface
PREFACE.
___________
We are not going to usher in our publication with any pomp of
prospectus. We mean to be very pleasant and ingenious, of course;
but decline proving it beforehand by a long common-place. The
greater the flourish of trumpets now-a-days, the more suspicious
what follows. Whatever it may be our luck to turn out, we at
least wave our privilege of having the way prepared for us by our
own mouth-pieces,—by words with long tails, and antitheses two
and two. If we succeed, so much the better. If not, we shall at
all events not die of the previous question, like an honest proposal
in Parliament.
But we are forced to be prefatory, whether we would or no: for
others, it seems, have been so anxious to furnish us with some-
thing of this sort, that they have blown the trumpet for us; and
done us the honour of announcing, that nothing less is to ensue,
than a dilapidation of all the outworks of civilized society. Such
at least, they say, is our intention; and such would be the conse-
quences, if they, the trumpeters, did not take care, by counter-
blasts, to puff the said outworks up again. We should be more
sensible of this honour, if it did not arise from a confusion of ideas.
They say that we are to cut up religion, morals, and everything
that is legitimate;—a pretty carving. It only shews what they
really think of their own opinions on those subjects. The other
day a ministerial paper said, that “robes and coronations were
[Page 5]
the strong-holds of royalty.” (1) We do not deny it; but if such is
their strength, what is their weakness? If by religion they meant
anything really worthy of divine or human beings; if by morals,
they meant the only true morals, justice and beneficence; if by
everything legitimate, they meant but half of what their own
laws and constitutions have provided against the impudent preten-
sions of the despotic,—then we should do our best to leave reli-
gion and morals as we found them, and shew their political good
faith at least half as much respect as we do. But when we know,
—and know too from our intimacy with various classes of people,
—that there is not a greater set of hypocrites in the world than
these pretended teachers of the honest and inexperienced part
of our countrymen;—when we know that their religion, even
when it is in earnest on any point (which is very seldom)
means the most ridiculous and untenable notions of the Divine
Being, and in all other cases means nothing but the Bench of
Bishops;—when we know that their morals consist for the most
part in a secret and practical contempt of their own professions,
and for the least and best part, of a few dull examples of some-
thing a little more honest, clapped in front to make a show and a
screen, and weak enough to be made tools against all mankind;—
and when we know, to crown all, that their “legitimacy,” as they
call it, is the most unlawful of all lawless and impudent things,
tending, under pretence that the whole world are as corrupt and
ignorant as themselves, to put it at the mercy of the most brute
understandings among them,—men by their very education in
these pretensions, rendered the least fit to sympathize with their
fellow men, and as unhappy, after all, as the lowest of their
slaves;—when we know all this, and see nine-tenths of all the
intelligent men in the world alive to it, and as resolved as we are
to oppose it, then indeed we are willing to accept the title of
enemies of religion, morals, and legitimacy, and hope to do our
duty with all becoming profaneness accordingly. God defend us
from the piety of thinking him a monster! God defend us from
the morality of slaves and turncoats, and from the legitimacy
[Page 6]
of half a dozen lawless old gentlemen, to whom, it seems, human
nature is an estate in fee.
The object of our work is not political, except inasmuch as all
writing now-a-days must involve something to that effect, the con-
nexion between politics and all other subjects of interest to man-
kind having been discovered, never again to be done away. We
wish to do our work quietly, if people will let us,—to contribute
our liberalities in the shape of Poetry, Essays, Tales, Translations,
and other amenities, of which kings themselves may read and
profit, if they are not afraid of seeing their own faces in every
species of inkstand. Italian Literature, in particular, will be a
favourite subject with us; and so was German and Spanish to
have been, till we lost the accomplished Scholar and Friend who
was to share our task;(2) but perhaps we may be able to get a sup-
ply of the scholarship, though not of the friendship. It may be
our good fortune to have more than one foreign correspondent,
who will be an acquisition to the reader. In the meantime, we
must do our best by ourselves; and the reader may be assured he
shall have all that is in us, clear and candid at all events, if nothing
else; for
We love to pour out all ourselves as plain
As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne.(3)
There are other things in the world besides kings, or even syco-
phants. There is one thing in particular with which we must
help to bring the polite world acquainted, which is Nature. Life
really does not consist, entirely, of clubs and ball-rooms, of a collar
made by Wilkins,(4) and of the west end of a town. We confess we
have a regard for the Dandies, properly so called; not the spu-
rious race who take their title from their stays; we mean the
pleasant and pithy personages who began the system, and who
had ideas as well as bibs in their head. But it was on that ac-
count. We liked them, because they partook of the Etheridges(5)
and Sucklings(6) of old: and why were the Etheridges and
Sucklings better than their neighbours, but because they in-
herited from Old Mother Wit as well as Mother West-end, and
[Page 7]
partook of the prerogatives of Nature? We have a regard for
certain modern Barons, as well as those who got the Great
Charter for us; but is it for those who would keep or for those
who would give up the Charter? Is it for those who identify
themselves with every feeble King John, or for those who have
some of “God Almighty’s Nobility” in them as well as their own?
Assuredly for the latter,—assuredly for those, who have some-
thing in them “which surpasses show,” and which the breath of
a puffing and blowing legitimate cannot unmake.
Be present then, and put life into our work, ye Spirits, not of
the Gavestones and the Despensers, but of the John o’Gaunts,
the Wickliffes, and the Chaucers;—be present, not the slaves
and sycophants of King Henry the Eighth (whose names we have
forgotten) but the Henry Howards, the Surreys, and the
Wyatts;—be present, not ye other rapscallions and “booing”
slaves of the court of King Jamie, but ye Buchanans and ye
Walter Raleighs;—be present, not ye bed-chamber lords, flog-
ging-boys, and mere soldiers, whosoever ye are, from my Lord
Thingumee in King Charles’s time, down to the immortal
Duke of What’s-his-Name now flourishing; but the Herberts,
the Hutchinsons, the Lockes, the Popes, and the Peterbo-
roughs;—be present, not ye miserable tyrants, slaves, bigots,
or turncoats of any party, not ye Lauds or ye Lauderdales, ye
Legitimate Pretenders (for so ye must now be called) ye Titus
Oateses, Bedlows, Gardiners, Sacheverells, and Southeys;
but ye Miltons and ye Marvells, ye Hoadleys, Addisons, and
Steeles, ye Somerses, Dorsets, and Priors, and all who have
thrown light and life upon man, instead of darkness and death;
who have made him a thing of hope and freedom, instead of
despair and slavery; a being progressive, instead of a creeping
creature retrograde:—if we have no pretensions to your genius,
we at least claim the merit of loving and admiring it, and of
longing to further its example.
We wish the title of our work to be taken in its largest ac-
ceptation, old as well as new,—but always in the same spirit of
[Page 8]
admiring and assisting, rather than of professing. We just as
much disclaim any assumption in it before the wise, as we dis-
claim any false modesty before all classes. All that we mean is,
that we are advocates of every species of liberal knowledge, and
that, by a natural consequence in these times, we go the full
length in matters of opinion with large bodies of men who are
called Liberals. At the same time, when we say the full length,
we mean something very different from what certain pretended
Liberals, and all the Illiberals, will take it to be; for it is by the
very reason of going to that length, in its most liberal extreme—
—“Ay, ay,” interrupts some old club-house Gentleman, in a buff
waistcoat and red-face,— “Now you talk sense. Extremes meet.
Verbum sat. I am a Liberal myself, if you come to that, and
devilish liberal I am. I gave for instance five guineas out of the
receipts of my sinecure to the Irish sufferers; but that is between
ourselves. You mean, that there are good hearty fellows in all
parties, and that the great business is to balance them properly;—
to let the people talk, provided they do no harm, and to let Go-
vernments go on as they do, have done, and will do for ever.
Good,— good. I’ll take in your journal myself;—here’s to the
success of it;—only don’t make it too violent, you rogues;—don’t
spoil the balance. (God! I’ve spilt my bumper!) Cut up
Southey as much as you please. We all think him as great a
coxcomb as you do, and he bores us to death; but spare the King
and the Ministers and all that, particularly Lord Castlereagh
and the Duke of Wellington. D——d gentlemanly fellow, Cas-
tlereagh, as you know; and besides he’s dead. Shocking thing—
shocking. It was all nonsense about his being so cold-hearted,
and doing Ireland so much harm. He was the most gentlemanly
of men. Wars must be carried on; Malthus has proved that
millions must be slaughtered from time to time. The nonsense
about that is as stupid as the cry about the game-laws and those
infernal villains the poachers, who ought all to be strung up like
hares: and as to Ireland, it is flying in the face of Providence
to think that such horrible things could happen there, and
[Page 9]
be prevented by earthly means,—earthly means, sir. Lord Cas-
tlereagh himself referred us to Providence in all these unavoid-
able matters, and he was right;—but to think of his cutting his
own throat—Good God! so very gentlemanly a man, and in the
height of his power! It is truly shocking! As to Wellington,
he’s not so gentlemanly a man, certainly; but then neither is
Canning, if you come to that. He cannot make speeches, I own;
but no more can the King or my Lord Maryborough, or a hun-
dred other eminent characters; and he does not make such cursed
awkward blunders as poor Castlereagh used to do. He has not
got a very wise look, they say; but—I don’t know,—it’s soldier-
like, I think; and if you come to that, what a strange fellow old
Blucher looked, and Suwarrow, and all those; and between
ourselves, the reigning Monarchs are a set of as common-looking
gentry, as you’d wish to see in a summer’s day; so I don’t know
what people would have. No—no—you really mustn’t speak
against Wellington. Besides, he prosecutes.”
We beg the reader’s pardon in behalf of our worthy interrupter.
Whatever may be his right estimation of his friends, we need not
say that he misinterprets our notions of liberality, which certainly
do not consist either in making the sort of confusion, or keeping
the sort of peace, which he speaks of. There are, if he pleases,
very silly fellows to be found in most parties, and these may be
good enough to be made tools of by the clever ones; but to con-
found all parties themselves with one another, which is the real
end of these pretended liberalities, and assume that none of them
are a jot better or worse than the other, and may contain just as
good and generous people,—this is to confound liberality with
illiberality, narrow views with large, the instincts of a selfish choice
with those of a generous one, and in the best and most imposing
instances, the mere amenities and ordinary virtues of private life
(which may be only a graceful selfishness, unless they go farther)
with the noblest and boldest sympathies in behalf of the human
race. It is too late in the day to be taken in with this kind of
cant, even by the jolliest of placemen in all the benevolence of
[Page 10]
his bumpers. The Duke of Wellington is a great officer, “after
his kind.” We do not mean at court, where he is a very little
officer, and condescends to change his Marshal’s staff for the stick
of a Lord in Waiting. But he is a good hunting captain,—a sort
of human setter. We allow him all his praise in that respect, and
only wish he had not confounded the rights of nations with those
of a manor. What does he mean too by treating public meetings
with contempt? and above all, what did he mean by that extremely
odd assumption of the didactic, about teaching a “great moral
lesson!” As to Lord Castlereagh, he was one of the most illibe-
ral and vindictive of statesmen, if we must use that word for
every petty retainer, whom a bad system swells for a time into a
part of its own unnatural greatness. Look at his famous Six Acts!
Look at his treatment of Bonaparte, his patronage of such in-
famous journals as the Beacon, his fondness for imprisoning, and
for what his weak obstinacy calls his other strong measures. But
he is dead, and people are now called upon to be liberal! Let us
be so, in God’s name, in the general sense we have of the infirmi-
ties of human nature; but it is one thing to be liberal in behalf
of the many, and another thing to be exclusively so in behalf of
the few. Have the consequences of Lord Castlereagh’s actions
died with him? Are the Six Acts dead? Are thousands of the
Irish living? We will give a specimen of the liberality of these
new demanders of liberality. The other day, when one of the
noblest of human beings, Percy Shelley, who had more religion
in his very differences with religion, than thousands of your church-
and-state men, was lost on the coast of Italy, the Courier said, that
“Mr. Percy Shelley, a writer of infidel poetry, was drowned.”
Where was the liberality of this canting insinuation? Where was
the decency, or, as it turned out, the common sense of it? Mr.
Shelley’s death by the waves was followed by Lord Castle-
reagh’s by his own hand; and then the cry is for liberal con-
structions! How could we not turn such a death against the
enemies of Mr. Shelley, if we could condescend to affect a mo-
ment’s agreement with their hypocrisy? But the least we can do
[Page 11]
is to let these people see, that we know them, and to warn them
how they assail us. The force of our answers will always be
proportioned to the want of liberality in the assailant. This is a
liberality, at all events, upon which our readers may reckon. The
rest, which we were going to say, is this;—that although we con-
demn by wholesale certain existing demands upon our submission
and credulity, we are not going to discover every imaginative thing
even in a religion to be nonsense, like a semi-liberalized French-
man; nor, on the other hand, to denounce all levity and wit to be
nonsense and want of feeling, like a semi-liberalized German. If
we are great admirers of Voltaire, we are great admirers also of
Goethe and Schiller. If we pay our homage to Dante and
Milton, we have tribute also for the brilliant sovereignties of
Ariosto and Boccaccio.
Wherever, in short, we see the mind of man exhibiting powers
of its own, and at the same time helping to carry on the best in-
terests of human nature,—however it may overdo the matter a
little on this side or on that, or otherwise partake of the common
frailty through which it passes,—there we recognise the demi-
gods of liberal worship;—there we bow down, and own our lords
and masters;—there we hope for the final passing away of all
obscene worships, however formalized,—of all monstrous sacri-
fices of the many to the few, however “legitimatized” and be-
sotted.
NOTES
[1] Untraced quotation.
[2] Percy Bysshe Shelley.
[3] Alexander Pope, “First Satire of the Second Book of Horace”, ll. 51-2. The Tory politician and MP William Shippen (1673-1743) relentlessly criticized the Walpole administration, attacking it in particular over the financial corruption of the South-Sea Company. Thanks to his Essais, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) became a model for honest self-examination and open discussions of social, political, moral and religious issues.
[4] Arnold Wilkins, a fashionable tailor with premises off Oxford Street.
[5] Sir George Etheredge (c. 1635-91), Restoration playwright.
[6] Sir John Suckling (1609-41), Cavalier poet and playwright.
[7] The Magna Charta, granted by King John in 1215.
[8] Piers Gaveston (1284-1312), favourite of Edward II.
[9] Hugh Despenser (1261-1326), favourite of Edward II.
[10] John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340-99), son of Edward III and father of Henry IV.
[11] John Wyclif (c. 1329-84), philosopher and Biblical translator. A protégé of John of Gaunt’s, he was strongly critical of the Catholic establishment.
[12] Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s-1400).
[13] King Henry VIII (1491-1547, reigned 1509-47).
[14] Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47) and Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42), poets and courtiers at the time of Henry VIII.
[15] King James VI of Scotland (1567-1625) and I of England (1603-25).
[16] George Buchanan (1506-82), Scottish scholar who promoted a doctrine of resistance to royal usurpation.
[17] Possible reference to Charles II (1630-85), who created a significant number of new peers during his reign.
[18] Possible reference to Charles II (1630-85), who created a significant number of new peers during his reign.
[19] The poet and clergyman George Herbert (1593-1633) or possibly the poet and politician Edward Herbert, first Baron of Cherbury (1583-1648).
[20] John Hutchinson (1614-64), Parliamentarian soldier and regicide.
[21] The philosopher and political thinker John Locke (1632-1704).
[22] The poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
[23] Charles Mordaunt, third Earl of Peterborough (1658-1735), soldier and politician.
[24] William Laud (1573-1645), Archbishop of Canterbury.
[25] John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale (1616-82), one of Charles II’s principal ministers.
[26] Titus Oates (1649-1705), Anglican clergyman and fabricator of the ‘Popish Plot’ (1678), a fictitious but widely believed Jesuit conspiracy aimed at assassinating Charles II and placing his Catholic brother, the Duke of York (later James II), on the throne.
[27] The adventurer William Bedlow (1650-80), who provided the English government with an account of the ‘Popish Plot’.
[28] The clergyman and politician Stephen Gardiner (1482-1555), who supported Henry VIII’s antipapal policies.
[29] The Anglican preacher Henry Sacheverell (c. 1674-1724), whose incendiary sermon delivered on 5 November 1709 facilitated the Tory landslide victory in the general election of 1710.
[30] Robert Southey (1774-1843), appointed Poet Laureate in 1813 by the Prince Regent (later George IV).
[31] John Milton (1608-74), poet and Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Commonwealth Council of State.
[32] The poet and satirist Andrew Marvell (1621-78).
[33] Benjamin Hoadly (1706-57), physician and dramatist.
[34] Joseph Addison (1672-1719), essayist, politician, poet, and playwright.
[35] Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729), politician, writer, and playwright.
[36] Lawyer and politician John Somers, Baron Somers (1651-1716).
[37] Poet and courtier Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset (1638-1706), patron of the poet and diplomat Matthew Prior (1664-1721).
[38] The poet and diplomat Matthew Prior (1664-1721) who was ‘discovered’ by his patron, the poet and courtier Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset (1638-1706).
[39] (Latin) “One word is enough”.
[40] George IV (reigned 1820-1830).
[41] Robert Stewart (1769-1822), Viscount Castlereagh and second Marquess of Londonderry, Chief Secretary for Ireland (1798-1801), Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (1807-09) and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1812-22).
[42] Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), first Duke of Wellington.
[43] Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), clergyman and scholar of political economy and demography.
[44] George Canning (1770-1827), Foreign Secretary between 1822 and 1827.
[45] William Wellesley-Pole (1763-1845), brother of the Duke of Wellington, first Baron Maryborough.
[46] Prussian field marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819).
[47] Russian military commander Aleksandr Vasilievich Suvorov (1729-1800), responsible for attacking the Turkish fortress of Ismail (see Lord Byron’s Don Juan VII).
[48] Reference to Wellington’s strong support for the measures against social unrest contained in the Six Acts of 1819.
[49] The Duke of Wellington was made field marshal in 1813. A Lord-in-waiting is a peer who holds office in the Royal household.
[50] Untraced quotation.
[51] Repressive legislation passed in 1819, after the Peterloo Massacre (16 August 1819) and the subsequent wave of disturbances, and aimed at limiting the radical press and suppressing seditious meetings in favour of parliamentary reform.
[52] Hunt may be referring to Castlereagh’s statement, after Napoleon’s defeat, that the French emperor would have deceived Britain into signing a peace treaty only in order subsequently to invade and defeat the country.
[53] Rabidly Tory paper published between 6 January and 22 September 1821.
[54] The Courier, 5 August 1822, p. 3.
Ultimo aggiornamento
22.11.2024